Hello Everyone,I am a 53 year old student just completing a 2 year Networking Program at a technical college, I transfer next semester to a four year polytechnic University, for a IT degree with concentrations in security and networking. I will be 55 years old when I graduate. I would like to work in the security field, I would like to get their as fast as possible. So I am asking those of you out there who may wish to comment, what you think the BEST career path (including certification path) I should travel would be. I expect to be working on campus next year in an IT capacity, and will have a CCNA in the next couple of months, as I am just completing CISCO networking academy. I would love to be a penetration tester, I see myself advancing up the ladder some, but not to far due to my age (running out of time) but I would like to have the funnest most rewarding career possible for as long as I am playing... all tips helpful..Thank you..pS I have zero IT experience at all at the moment, although I was a military technician both as a Radioman and ET for many years, but got out of the service before Internet kicked in....thanks

While I'm new to this forum, I'm in no way new to Information Security. I am also former military (Air Force) and while the military is the reason I'm in the Information Security career field, I think what made me so successful were the Cisco courses (CCNA) I took while in high school. The material in the CCNA course I think is fundamental and I'm glad to see your spending time on that.

Beyond that, the best advice I can give is to get your hands dirty. Reading a book and studying for certification tests are good, but nothing beats setting up virtual test labs and simply playing with things. In doing that, become very familiar with Microsoft products and get a good understanding of Linux. From a certification path, I would recommend looking at Security+, CEH, eCCPT and OSCP (in that order). There are a number of certifications out there and by no means is this the only way to do it.

I like the certs jbush listed. But make sure you have a decent background in the 5 areas JamieR mentioned. I was completely new to IT in April and I tried to learn some pentesting but it was really hard not having a fundamental background in those areas. I would learn them in this order protocols, networking, linux, php, then python